The Senate passed its own stopgap measure on Thursday, 76-22, but members of the House’s most conservative Freedom Caucus, said they would not support it and McCarthy for now has refused to bring it to a House vote.

“We actually need a stop-gap measure to allow the House to continue to finish its work, to make sure our military gets paid, to make sure our border agents get paid as we finish the job that we’re supposed to do,” McCarthy said.

The Republican House bill would create a fiscal commission to balance the federal budget and recommend changes to improve solvency for some programs, such as Medicare and Social Security.

In the meantime, Congress edged closer to a midnight Sunday deadline when the federal government. Opposition Republicans, led by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., have frustrated and undercut McCarthy for weeks as the GOP holds only a four-seat majority in the House, giving the hardline coalition increased leverage on critical votes.

If lawmakers don’t to pass the spending measure before Sunday’s deadline, federal workers, including Border Patrol agents, could go weeks without pay.

Senate Republicans were working closely with House conservatives to piece together a competing funding bill aimed at giving McCarthy more leverage to negotiate with the defiant bloc of far-right conservatives.

McCarthy has discretion to put either the House or Senate stopgap up for a full vote, presumably before midnight Sunday, when funding for the government is due to expire.

However, it was unclear whether he will have the votes to pass the House stopgap measure, which would set discretionary spending below the $1.59 trillion that McCarthy and President Joe Biden agreed to in a debt limit deal earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the Senate was expected to take a series of votes over the weekend in an effort to get its funding bill to the House for a final vote by Sunday. But nothing was a sure bet as some conservative senators vowed to oppose the measure due to allocations for Ukraine.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he would oppose the stopgap funding so long as funding for Ukraine remained in the bill.

“To avoid a government shutdown, I will consent to an expedited vote on a clean CR without Ukraine aid on it. If leadership insists on funding another country’s government at the expense of our own government, all blame rests with their intransigence,” he said in a statement posted to X.

Lawmakers acknowledged that time was running out and that a shutdown would be likely unless McCarthy could reach an unlikely compromise with the rancorous conservative bloc.

“It’s hard to see that we would get everything done by Saturday night,” said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.

House Republicans also expressed growing uncertainty as the funding deadline approached.

“Unless something dramatic happens today or tomorrow, there will likely be a couple-of-day or longer shutdown — very, very unfortunately, because it’s our responsibility to exercise and exhaust all options,” said Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa.

Senators were advised to remain in Washington over the weekend to ensure they are “available” for the vote.

“Right now, we’re told if Republicans insist on delay, we’ll be voting through Sunday,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.